NEWS

Trains block Wisconsin roads, lives

Karen Madden, Sari Lesk and Chris Mueller | Gannett Wisconsin Media

For almost two years before her husband's death in December, Linda Weinfurtner worried about whether ambulances could reach their Auburndale home in an emergency.

Linda and her husband, Bob, lived in their Schultz Avenue home for about 40 years. Only in the last two years of Bob's life did it become routine for trains to sit for hours on the tracks outside their home, blocking the couple's only access to and from their house.

From left, neighbors Linda Weinfurtner and Jay and Lori Butts, who say Canadian National trains block access to the main road in Auburndale sometimes for hours.

The Weinfurtner house and two other modest, working-class homes sit only a few feet from two railroad tracks that cross Schultz Avenue. The road barely begins before it ends in a cul-de-sac a few yards from the track. The tracks separate the three families from everything else in the village of Auburndale.

"We're literally on the wrong side of the tracks," Linda Weinfurtner said.

The Weinfurtners and other people living near railroad tracks in Wisconsin say that lengthy train blockages have grown into a frequent and serious disruption, and a real public safety issue. The reason for the escalation of problems can be summed up in a few words — sand and oil.

The amount of industrial sand, the type used in what is called frac-sand oil drilling, transported by train grew from about 10 million tons in 2005 to about 50 million tons in 2014, according to the Association of American Railroads. Wisconsin was second only to Texas in exporting crushed and broken stone, gravel and industrial sand in 2012. Similarly, the amount of crude oil moving across the nation went from fewer than 30,000 carloads in 2010 to nearly 500,000 carloads in 2014.

The increase in traffic has caused gridlock on Wisconsin's rail lines, sometimes leaving trains stalled on the tracks for hours or even days. Residents and government officials, meanwhile, feel powerless to do anything about it.

No one can agree on who has the authority to regulate trains. State and local governments have adopted regulations limiting the length of time trains can block intersections. But in Wisconsin, the dominant rail line, Canadian National, has persuaded judges and public officials that only the federal government can regulate rails, allowing its trains to sit idle and block crossings for as long as it wants.

That leaves residents like the Weinfurtners caught in the middle. Before his death, Bob Weinfurtner led the fight in Auburndale against Canadian National, which operates 44 percent of the railroad tracks in the state.

It was a losing battle.

PDFs: View state and county train regulation documents

As train traffic has increased and the legal battles and bureaucratic finger-pointing have dragged on, residents have been stuck — literally. The problem is serious enough that it has caught the attention of many Wisconsin lawmakers, and it's possible that maybe — just maybe — a solution is in sight.

For many residents, though, the problem right now seems intractable.

***

When Bob Weinfurtner questioned railroad employees about how fire trucks and ambulances would reach homes in an emergency, the crews suggested firefighters could string hoses under a stopped train, Linda Weinfurtner said. She said reps told her the hoses were long enough to reach the three houses on Schultz Avenue. She was even told by railroad employees, she said, that paramedics could climb over a stopped train to reach the houses.

Linda Weinfurtner isn't sure which of the multiple railroads that have operated the tracks near her house originally told her husband that firefighters and medics could go over or under the rail cars, but it's a response that has stuck with Weinfurtner and her neighbors Lori and Jay Butts.

Canadian National's official policy is that people should never attempt to climb over stopped trains, according to Patrick Waldron, senior manager of public and government affairs for the company. He declined to comment on what the Weinfurtners and other families should do when trains block their access in emergencies.

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Join Gannett Wisconsin Media journalists at 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 13,  for a town hall-style meeting to discuss concerns about stopped trains. The forum is planned at St. Michael's Church Hall, 324 Main St., Junction City.

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Medical issues caused Bob Weinfurtner to stay in a care center before he died in December. When Linda Weinfurtner found herself unable to return home after work one night because of a train blocking the road she lives on, she went to visit her husband and told him what was happening. He immediately got on the phone to the Wood County Sheriff's Department to complain.

At about 11 p.m., an officer told the couple the road was open. Linda went home to find the train moved a few feet to unblock the avenue.

"Why couldn't they have done that hours earlier?" she wondered.

Jim and Barb Vitort of Junction City say trains have blocked access to their home during emergencies, prompting them to build a private frontage road.

In nearby Junction City, hay and grain farmers Jim and Barb Vitort lost a tractor that went up in flames on their property because firefighters couldn't maneuver around a train blocking their road.

In another incident, a train blocked their home when ambulances tried to respond to treat their injured son. It took four hours for the train to move, and the ambulance had to reach their home by a private road they built to mitigate the problem.

Barb Vitort said that she once drove Jim to the hospital herself when he had a heart attack and their driveway was blocked. She knew it could take longer to explain to responders how to reach their home on the private road than to drive Jim herself.

Some residents have resorted to climbing over stopped trains. Lori Butts had been late for work numerous times; she was penalized for poor attendance and is at risk of losing her job. She said her boss is sympathetic to the situation but can't make an exception just because Lori lives next to a railroad track.

Desperate and exhausted after long days of work, both Lori and Jay have climbed over the trains to get to their house. At other times, Lori has hopped the train in the morning on her way to work, and her boss has picked her up on the other side of the tracks. "Hopping" trains is the term the couple uses for climbing over them.

They've even passed their grandchildren between the trains to get them to the house.

"When you have small children who are hungry or have to go to the bathroom, what are you going to do?" Lori Butts asked.

***

In Wood and Portage counties, deputies in the past two years have written more than 100 citations to Canadian National when abandoned or stalled trains have blocked intersections. No single state agency tracks how many times Canadian National or other railroads have been cited over that time, and tabulating the rate is next to impossible because citations are filed in municipal courts, whose records aren't available online.

In Wood County, though, deputies issued a total of 47 citations to Canadian National for blocking access to highways. The company paid 14 of the citations for a total of $6,335 but then challenged 32 by arguing the court couldn't regulate railroads. Wood County Circuit Judge Todd Wolf agreed and dismissed the charges; one citation hasn't been resolved.

In Portage County, deputies have written 60 citations in the past two years for trains blocking crossings. Canadian National challenged 29, and Portage County Circuit Judge John Finn dismissed them. The company paid a total of $5,630 for the remaining 31 citations.

To put those fines in context: Canadian National earned $677 million in the second quarter of 2015, according to its quarterly report.

Those judges got it wrong, according to a Federal Railroad Administration spokesman and at least one U.S congressman. They said federal law does not prevent state and local governments from regulating railroads and that Congress has never given the Railroad Administration a directive to take action in cases of stopped trains.

For now, the matter remains unresolved. Congress might be on the verge of stepping in to address the problem, prompted by complaints that have erupted across Wisconsin and by Canadian National's success in fighting local regulations.

***

Linda Weinfurtner and the Vitorts are outraged by the judges' decisions, which essentially leave Canadian National free to block intersections for as long as it pleases, wherever it wants. In central Wisconsin, where small communities often are bisected by rail lines, those blockages can cause serious problems.

On Schultz Avenue in Auburndale, for example, an average of 15 trains travel through the crossing between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. each day, with an additional 10 trains going through over the next 12 hours, according to Federal Railroad Commission reports.

Marshfield Fire Chief Robert Haight said any delay longer than six minutes while delivering medical attention is detrimental to a person involved in a cardiac arrest, and the Marshfield ambulances have to travel about 10 miles to get to Auburndale.

"Even if it's just one person that's been cut off, that's a problem," he said.

Haight said the suggestion that paramedics and firefighters can crawl over or under trains to get to victims and fires simply is unreasonable. He's willing to work with Canadian National officials to determine what firefighters and paramedics realistically can do, but he said so far, the railroad has sought resolution in court, not in discussions.

For the families involved, these aren't hypothetical problems. The Vitorts were home in Junction City one Christmas Eve, for example, when they saw a train roll by — and then stop, and sit, and sit and sit. When it was time to go to church the next day, the train was still parked there, blocking them from leaving.

The couple lives in a town that takes its name from its strategic location along rail lines; it was the junction of the east-west route of the former Soo Line Railroad from Stevens Point to Marshfield, and the north-south route of the former Milwaukee Road from Wisconsin Rapids to Wausau. Both companies are now part of Canadian National.

Jim and Barb Vitort have been corresponding with officials about their railroad concerns for years. They personally requested cooperation from Canadian National after Jim had his heart attack and Barb Vitort felt she had to drive him to the hospital herself.

Barb Vitort wrote to the railroad company asking that access to their home be kept open so emergency responders could help her husband if he were to have another heart attack.

"We were sorry to hear of Mr. Vitort's recent medical setback," the company replied in a letter signed by Thomas Healey, the company's regulatory counsel, dated Nov. 7, 2012. "Regulating the passage of our trains to accommodate situations such as that you describe in your letter is simply not possible."

The Vitorts are as frustrated as Weinfurtner with recent court rulings that sided with Canadian National.

"It's a shame, really, that big money, big business can stomp all over an individual's rights," Jim Vitort said. "It just amazes me at the lack of rights that an individual has and how law enforcement or how the judge can possibly see fit to not enforce the law."

Jim Vitort built this frontage road in front of his home in Junction City to use when stopped Canadian National trains cut off the street access to their home.

The Vitorts' neighbors know the same struggle.

Maija Stumbris and Natalie Glaze live together on a nearby property in Junction City and also have been trapped in their home for hours at a time.

Glaze, an expectant mother who has a young daughter, worries she will be on the wrong side of the tracks when she goes into labor in November. She's also concerned that emergency crews will not be able to reach her family in an emergency if they can't find their way through the Vitorts' private road.

"Having to explain to an emergency dispatcher how to get around, the time that you would waste explaining that and then hopefully they would figure it out," Glaze said. "If they didn't figure it out, that could be a matter of life or death."

For Dave Jacobowski, general manager for Liberty Tire in Auburndale, the problem isn't just frustrating — it's expensive. One day last year, a Canadian National train stopped across three of the roads with crossings in Auburndale at about noon. The train stayed there until after 7 p.m., blocking all access to his business, Jacobowski said.

"We lost tens of thousands of dollars of revenue that day," he said.

Liberty Tire paid employees overtime because they couldn't leave to go home — except those who risked injury to climb over the train to a waiting taxi or family member's vehicle, Jacobowski said. It was a safety hazard, he said, but it was the only way they could leave.

Jacobowski said he sent Canadian National a letter asking for reimbursement on the money the train delay cost Liberty National, but he never heard back from company officials.

Canadian National officials contacted for this story declined to comment on Jacobowski's situation or the plights of families that have been blocked by trains for hours or days.

***

U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner was shocked when he walked into a town hall meeting in the tiny Dodge County town of Clyman — population 422 — and found the meeting room packed with residents.

Almost all of them were there to complain about one thing: trains blocking railroad crossings and cutting people off from their homes.

Sensenbrenner, a Menomonee Falls Republican, said one couple told the story of frequently being unable to get their grandchildren to school in the morning because of trains blocking their street. The school district wouldn't accept a stopped train as an excuse for missing school, so the couple ended up passing their grandchildren through gaps in the train to get them to the other side.

"That's flat-out dangerous, to pass the kids between the cars," Sensenbrenner said. "If the train had suddenly moved, they would have been killed."

That experience sucked Sensenbrenner into the growing conflict between Wisconsin railroads and residents who routinely are blocked from their homes or businesses for hours or even days at a time.

He met with Wisconsin Railroad Commissioner Jeff Plale, town officials and Union Pacific Railroad representatives. The railroad agreed to relocate its tracks to solve the problem with the families affected by the trains in Clyman, but that didn't solve the problem in the rest of Wisconsin.

Sensenbrenner decided something needed to be done and wrote a bill to try to alleviate the problem.

In Auburndale, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation decided to move the access for Schultz Avenue and two other roads similarly cut off by tracks to the other end of the short streets. Officials say the project should be done by the end of 2016, but it's a date that Auburndale resident Jay Butts said has been delayed many times in the past several years because of problems.

***

While local, state and federal officials point their fingers at each other over who has the authority to keep trains from creating dangerous situations by blocking access for long periods of time, residents find themselves waiting for relief — from anyone.

They've tried going to Plale, the state railroad commissioner, but he's not eager to issue orders to Canadian National. Plale said he instead talks to operations and government-affairs officials with the railroads regularly and believes they are willing to help solve problems with blocked road crossings.

Overview of crossings.

"There is no upside to having their trains stopped," he said. "They're losing revenue for every minute that train is sitting idle."

It's nearly impossible for Plale or anyone else to determine how many trains are stopped, or for how long every day.

Railroad companies aren't required to give government authorities information about the number of trains that go through, said Mark Morrison, supervisor for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation Railroad Engineering and Safety Unit. Local, state and federal agencies lack complete information on the number of trains going though a specific area.

But national estimates on the growth in rail traffic are staggering. The number of carloads of crude oil crossing the United States last year was more than 15 times higher than it was just five years ago, according to the Association of American Railroads. Loads of crushed stone, sand and gravel increased from fewer than 500,000 to 1.2 million in that same five-year period.

Plale said he recognizes that stopped trains loaded with sand and oil pose a safety hazard. But solving the problem isn't easy.

"We've had situations where kids have crawled under trains to get to school buses," he said. "That makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up."

The problem is not limited to central Wisconsin. The number of trains traveling — and being left idle — across the state has grown in the past few years. Trains moving sand from Wisconsin used in the oil and gas drilling process known as fracking are competing for space with other trains moving crude oil from North Dakota, Plale said.

"There is just a lot more stuff moving," he said. "You put that many more trains on the system and it gets backed up."

***

Federal laws set strict safety rules about how long train crews can work, Sensenbrenner said, and those rules contribute to the problem. If crews work 10 hours they must take 12 hours off before they work again. If they work 12 hours, they must take 18 hours off.

Often, a rail crew will reach a hub such as Clyman, Auburndale or Junction City just as it is hitting its limit. The law requires them to stop the train, which then sits waiting, sometimes for hours, for a new crew.

Sensenbrenner said his bill would allow train crews that have reached the maximum working hours allowed by federal law to continue until the train is in a location that will cause the least amount of disruption for residents.

Such a law would help in instances of abandoned trains, but not when trains are stopped for hours at a time for other reasons.

A train sits on the railroad tracks near Woodward Drive in Stevens Point on July 14, 2015.

State Sen. Julie Lassa, D-Stevens Point, said recent court rulings that prevent communities from taking action against railroads indicate to her that the government needs to take stronger measures.

"The rulings demonstrate that we need to press for federal action to address this frustrating and potentially dangerous problem," Lassa said.

Lassa organized a meeting last year in Junction City that brought state and local officials together with members of the public and Canadian National representatives to discuss the issue. The meeting, which more than 100 people attended, gave residents a chance to talk directly to railroad officials about their concerns.

"We were also able to put pressure on (Canadian National) to be a good neighbor to the communities that they operate in," she said.

Patrick Waldron, the spokesman for Canadian National, said in a written statement that the railroad "remains sensitive to the concerns of the communities through which we operate and we continue to work to minimize the number of blocked crossings throughout Wisconsin."

In the last year, Canadian National has invested in improving the flow of trains in Wisconsin by building new capacity at important rail yards in Stevens Point and Superior, Waldron said. The railroad also has added train crews and new locomotives in the state, he said. Waldron declined to say exactly how many new people had been hired in the state or offer other specific details of how Canadian National is addressing the problem.

"All these investments have added efficiency and fluidity to our Wisconsin network and help us minimize the number of blocked crossings," he said.

Canadian National spent $114 million in 2014 maintaining and improving its rail network across Wisconsin, Waldron said.

"We believe the network is improved and that has resulted in fewer blocked crossings," he said.

Waldron would not reveal specifics about the number of complaints Canadian National receives as a result of blocked crossings.

Neither residents living in areas blocked by trains nor the local officials who represent them are impressed by Canadian National's efforts. They are frustrated by the seeming lack of oversight of the railroads.

***

On July 21, the Wood County Board voted to send state and federal officials and Canadian National a message encouraging them to find reasonable solutions to the problems in Auburndale and across the county.

"We are voting today to express our concerns over the drastic increase in train stoppages in rural communities throughout Wisconsin, in particular here in Wood County, and call upon government officials to utilize the maximum authority of your office to hold rail lines accountable for the disruptions that they cause the citizens of Wisconsin," the county's statement says.

In 2014 and 2015, the Wood County Sheriff's Department received and documented 141 instances of unreasonable train blockages in the village of Auburndale, according to the statement.

Both Portage County and Junction City voted similarly to request that government and railroad officials take reasonable steps to address the problem.

Michael Booth, a spokesman for the Federal Railroad Administration, said that contrary to recent local court rulings, federal regulations do not prevent states from creating their own laws to address the issue. Local police are free to cite railroads for violating laws against blocking intersections, he said.

A train sits on the railroad tracks near Woodward Drive in Stevens Point on July 14, 2015.

Sensenbrenner agreed and encouraged central Wisconsin police to continue writing citations. He said that any responsibility — such as rules about road crossings — that isn't specifically assigned to the federal government can be regulated by state and local government.

In the meantime, though, there are no federal regulations addressing blocked intersections. The Federal Railroad Administration wants people to contact the department's regional safety offices when crossings are blocked for an unreasonable amount of time, Booth said.

"FRA works with communities and the railroads to find a solution, especially when emergency access is a concern," he said.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, D-La Crosse, also are getting involved. After Gannett Wisconsin Media asked them about regulations that would allow the Federal Railroad Administration to regulate trains blocking crossings, they wrote a letter to the acting administrator of the agency, Sarah Feinberg.

The letter asks Feinberg to take action in the regulation and enforcement of the length of time that a train can block a crossing. The increased transportation of crude oil by trains in western and central Wisconsin has caused a dramatic rise in rail traffic through communities, the lawmakers wrote.

"Not only is this a quality of life issue, but it truly impacts our communities' safety," Baldwin and Kind wrote.

For now, though, the matter remains unresolved. Judges have passed the buck to the federal government, the federal government has passed it back to state and local officials, and Canadian National appears ready to fight any additional citations.

That leaves residents and some officials wondering if it will take a death or other tragedy because of a stopped train before the problem is fixed.

About three months ago, Lori and Jay Butts came home to find two trains stopped side-by-side across their road in Auburndale. They started to climb over when both trains began to move. Lori was trapped between the two moving trains, which were only a few feet apart. Jay jumped to safety.

"It scared us so bad we haven't hopped the trains since," Lori Butts said.

About this project

Gannett Wisconsin Media reporters Karen Madden in Wisconsin Rapids and Sari Lesk and Chris Mueller in Stevens Point began to investigate this summer when they heard complaints from local officials and residents that no one could stop the railroads from blocking streets for as long as they wanted.

Clockwise from top left: Karen Madden, Chris Mueller, Megan McCormick, Sari Lesk

Over the course of several weeks, the three reporters and photojournalist Megan McCormick interviewed more than 20 sources who told of their personal struggles with the railroad and of their frustration in trying to get their problems addressed. The journalists met with residents at their homes, local officials in their offices, and spoke over the phone with members of Congress and rail officials.

The investigation revealed that the sharp increase in rail traffic, driven primarily by the oil industry, is a direct contributor to the problem, which has endangered residents cut off by stalled trains. Local officials are stymied because the state's dominant railroad, Canadian National, has persuaded judges that local laws don't apply to the company.

This report uncovers not only the root of the problem, but also solutions that might help.

How to report train delays

Residents can report trains blocking intersections to the Federal Railroad Administration.

The complaint form is on the main page of the website, www.fra.dot.gov. At the middle of the page, on the right, under the a heading entitled "How do I...?" is the option "File an alleged violation."

People also can call the federal agency's regional office at 1-800-724-5040.

About Canadian National

• Founded June 6, 1919. Privatized Nov. 17, 1995

• Based in Montreal, Quebec

• Employs more than 24,000 people in the U.S. and Canada

• Owns approximately 20,600 miles of rail in North America

• Earned about $10.57 billion Canadian in revenue in 2013

Let us know what you think. Contact Executive Editor Mark Treinen by email at mtreinen@gannett.com. We may use your responses in future published reports.